


What happens in Lockdown, stays in Lockdown...

by jinxed_wood



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, edrisa needs a hug, lockdowns & friendships, nerds being nerd friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29574819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxed_wood/pseuds/jinxed_wood
Summary: Malcolm suddenly realises he and Edrisa have become friends when he wasn't looking.... (also, the author suddenly realises she sucks at titles. sorry about that)
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Edrisa Tanaka
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	What happens in Lockdown, stays in Lockdown...

His wrists hurt. 

Malcolm spat out his mouth guard as he awoke, blearily looking at his reddened skin as he released his restraints. This was the third time this week. His night terrors had returned in full force. 

Sunshine squealed at him scoldingly, raising his wings as he passed his cage, which usually meant there was someone coming up the stairs but, as it had been three weeks since anybody had visited his apartment, Malcolm surmised his nightmare had been a little louder than usual last night. 

“Sorry, Sunshine, I’ll try to keep it down,” he said, rubbing at his eyes as he padded towards the kitchen. He picked up his remote and turned on the television before reaching for his medication. 

_“Week three of New York’s Lockdown…”_

Malcolm sighed, looking away from the screen as he swallowed down his daily regimen. Maybe he should talk to Dr Le Deux about changing his dosages? Of course, in order to do that, he’d have to take her zoom calls. Gabrielle had known him since he was eleven, it would take her exactly two minutes to realise something was seriously wrong. Something he couldn’t afford to let happen. 

Being trapped within the confines of his apartment, with nothing else to do except think about what he’d done to Endicott’s bloodied corpse, had really concentrated his mind in the worst possible way. What had he been thinking, asking his father for help like that? How could he have been so stupid?

Malcolm curled his hand and into a fist before it could get any ideas. Strangely enough, his hand tremors had improved since Endicott’s death, a revelation he didn’t like to dwell on. It brought up too many uncomfortable questions

Like, why wasn’t he more traumatised by the experience of cleaning up after a murder? Did that mean he was psychopathic or merely displaying psychopathic traits. Did the dissociative state experienced by his sister mean she’d had a psychotic break, or was it regular old fashioned amnesia, brought on by an extreme stress reaction to her violent outburst?

He was praying for the latter. It wasn’t that unusual, he reasoned with himself, over thirty percent of violent offenders suffered from some sort of dissociative or amnesiac state after the fact.

But if it was the former?

This was it, his own personal hell, Malcolm thought glumly. He reached for the twizzler jar and retreated to the couch as the newsreader droned on. _“Central Park’s field hospital is experiencing severe shortages in…"_

He picked up the remote and switched off the screen. Perhaps a little yoga was in order? A little more mindfulness might concentrate the mind. 

* * *

An hour later, he was staring blankly at the ceiling, the thin yoga mat under him beginning to stick to his back. Sunshine was kicking up a racket again. Less of a ‘red alert’ kind of chirp and more of ‘feed me’ kind of tweet. At least she wasn’t rattling her wings at him again. 

He glanced at the clock. It wasn’t yet 9 am and he was already ready to call it a day. “Coming, Sunshine,” he said, rolling to his feet. His mother would be calling him in a few minutes anyway. He’d managed to avoid being trapped in the same house as his mother for the last month by stretching the truth a little and telling her he’d been categorised as an essential worker because of his consultant work with the NYPD.

Of course, the NYPD hadn’t had need of his services over the last few weeks - it turns out a citywide lockdown pushes up the incidences of domestic violence but seriously puts a cramp in the more interesting varieties of homicide, and you don’t need a profiler if you already know the killer was the person sleeping next to the victim in the bed. 

Malcolm refilled Sunshine’s water and managed to make himself a cup of coffee before his phone lit up.

“Mother,” he said, picking up. “How are things?”

 _“Your sister has insisted on going down to Central Park to cover the news,_ ” his mother said. _“I don’t understand what I did to deserve suck willful children.”_

“It’s a mystery,” Malcolm said dryly, as he opened his laptop and scrolled through his email. “How’s Gil?” He knew exactly how Gil was doing, but he thought it was best to get his mother off the topic of Ainsley as soon as possible.

 _“He’s as well as can be expected. He started physio today. They’re not making any promises but GIl said they’re optimistic he’ll make a full recovery_.”

“That’s good,” Malcolm said distractedly, as he spotted a rather strange looking email that looked like it had been forwarded by Edrisa, with the header, **‘You like?’** He clicked.

**“Audit options at ASU for the PSU Masters:**

**Advanced Topics in Human Forensic DNA/Advanced Forensic Psychology**

**I’ll coach you and you’ll coach me???? They’re putting their lectures online, so we can judge them on mute.”**

Malcolm let out a snort. He should have seen this coming. Perhaps he shouldn’t have fired off that email to her at five am, after spending another restless night worried about his DNA possibly being present on Endicott’s body. He really should have worn a full noddy suit like his father had suggested…

 _“ Malcolm, are you even listening to me_?”

He closed his eyes. “Sorry Mother, what were you saying?”

“ _I was suggesting that perhaps you could have a word with your sister about the hazards of running around in public with a news crew in the middle of a pandemic…”_

Oh joy, that was going to be a pleasant conversation. He idly hovered over the email’s reply button. Oh, what the hell, what else was he going to do with his Tuesday and Thursdays?

“Gotta go, Mother,” he said. “Something has come up.”

“ _Please don’t tell me it’s another horrid murder…_ ”

“Sorry…..khrrrrhhhhhh….you’re breaking up,” he said, hanging up. He was definitely going to pay for that later, but he needed more coffee first. He pulled his laptop closer and hit the reply button.

**Sounds like a plan. I’ll make popcorn.**

* * *

Auditing classes with Edrisa was surprisingly fun. She had quite an acerbic sense of humour once she relaxed her guard a little, and her language got quite colourful when she pulled apart the lecture on the possible interpretative challenges posed by post-mortem toxicology testing. He had also explained to her, in turn, how sometimes a yawning chasm can develop between policy and practice in the field of forensic psychology, and how the lecturer was full of granola. 

They ate quite a lot of popcorn.

It was in week two that Edrisa discovered he played Go, and that was most of that weekend gone. 

And that was how the next month went. One Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, they mocked their lecturers, and on Saturdays and Sundays they played Go and checked each other’s notes. They had a rhythm going, even a kind of friendship - one that wasn’t based on their jobs.

Well, kind of.

Things went a little off kilter when he called her at work. 

_“ Tanaka. This better be good. I’m up to my elbows in guts,”_ said a brisk voice that he rarely heard sent in his direction. He guessed the guts had something to do with why she hadn’t checked her caller ID.

“Edrisa? Is this a bad time?”

“ _Bright?_ ” her voice warmed, but still sounded weary. “ _What’s up? You got a body?_ ”

“Uh, no.” He hesitated, he liked to think he and Edrisa were becoming friends, but they weren’t the kind of friends that talked about their feelings. “Are you okay? You sound funny.”

There was a pause at the other end.” _I’m supervising our office’s BCP and DPMU, they’re currently being utilised by the Central Park hospital. Things are…difficult.”_

It took him a moment to translate the acronyms in his head; a BCP was Body Collection Point, freezer space to deal with the overflow in other words, and a DPMU was a Disaster Portable Morgue Unit. He swallowed, he’d known academically things had gotten pretty bad, but still…

“Not okay, then,” he said, trying to keep his voice light but failing utterly.

 _“Not even close._ ” There was a shake in her voice, but whether it was due to trauma or just plain exhaustion, he didn’t know. _“I’ll talk to you later, okay?”_

But she didn’t, and Malcolm found himself hovered over the phone, unsure as to what to do. They were friends, but they weren’t _that_ kind of friends. They jeered at their online professors together and teased each other about their Go skills, they didn’t talk about death and dying and the slow seeping panic that creeps through your mind at two in the morning as you wonder if this will ever end. 

Okay.

He needed sleep.

* * *

The next day, Edrisa joined him on Zoom just in time to sign into that night’s lecture. “I’ve got popcorn,” she said, as she hauled a giant popcorn bowl onto her lap. Her cat, Mausu, butted into her side, purring. “Let the imparting of medical wisdom commence!”

Malcolm smirked, despite himself, and raised his twizzler in salute. Perhaps this was for the best. A bit of normality in a crazy world. 

Well, relatively normal. 

* * *

Three weeks later, lockdown lifted. A week after that, Major Crimes had their first profiler worthy case in over three months.

He brought lollipops.

Lemon and lime,” he announced, handing the lollipop to Dani, who smirked at him - at least he _thinks_ she did. With the masks, it was sometimes difficult to know. Her eyes did that amused, crinkly thing they usually do when she smirks, so he figured he was close enough. JT just rolled his eyes as Malcolm offered him an orange flavoured non, but he pocketed it nonetheless.

“Where is Edrisa?” he asked, looking around. 

“Downstairs,” JT said, his eyes already scanning the file in his hand. Malcolm fought the impulse to ask for a look and glanced down at the covered body. Should he take a peek? No, he’d wait.

Where was Edrisa?”

“Be right back,” he said, and darted into the back corridor before JT could say anything. It was weird not having Gil around.

He eventually found her in front of the morgue lockers, her eyes far away. “Hey, he said.

She looked up, her eyes lighting up over her mask. “Bright!” she said. “Sorry, I lost track of time.”

He held out a cherry lollipop and then pulled her into a hug. What could he say? She looked like she needed one.

Oh, so we’re hugging now,” JT muttered, from behind him. “When the hell did the hugging start? Also, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t qualify as social distancing.”

“Right, sorry,” Edrisa mumbled, pulling away. “Have you seen the body yet?”

Malcolm felt slightly embarrassed to say he hadn’t wanted to start without her. “And let you miss the opportunity to critique my newfound forensic knowledge. Heaven forfend.”

Edrisa snorted. “Something tells me you’re not going to miss the cause of death for this one”

She was right.

Death by bee swarm, who knew?

* * *

Two weeks later, they initiated their first movie night. Malcolm had invited Dani and JT too, but they’d both given each other this strangely significant look and begged off.

“They probably thought we were going to talk murder all night,” Edrisa mused, as she scooped out a handful of popcorn from the bowl and sank back into his couch. 

“You think?” Malcolm asked, as he flopped down beside her and reached for the remote. 

Edrisa shrugged. “You’re the profiler,” she said, flicking a popcorn kernel at him. “So what are we watching?”

On this, Malcolm felt he was on firmer ground “Silence of the Lambs.”

Edrisa looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

“What?” he said. “It won an oscar. It’s not weird.”

“Uhuh, so is your scotch as good as Dani said it was, or was she just joshing me?”

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the Macallan”

She stretched her hand out. “Leave the remote with me.”

“You’re changing the movie?”

“Oh, hell no, we’re totally watching it - but with good scotch.”

Malcolm eyed the way she toed off her shoes and propped her feet up on the coffee table. She was definitely making herself at home.

Like a friend would, he realised, as Sunshine chirped from his perch.

“Don’t forget the ice!” Edrisa called out.

Malcolm winced, perhaps he could swap out the Macallan for something a little less expensive - after all, how much was their friendship really worth?

He shook his head and reached for the Macallan.

FINIS

  
  



End file.
